


All The Leaves Are Brown

by poisontaster



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Day At The Beach, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-19
Updated: 2006-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23766145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: He can't stop, like a shark that must swim forever just to be able to breathe.





	All The Leaves Are Brown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for scribblinlenore's Lenore's Utterly Egocentric Summer of Love Challenge (her words, not mine). To quote: pick one of the top 100 songs of 1966, pick a fandom, and put your creativity to work. Post what you come up with on June 20th [2006]. I picked two songs. This one was inspired by "California Dreaming", a song I love so much I have versions by The Mamas and The Papas, Queen Latifah, and R.E.M.

There is snow falling from the blackened sky and ice covering the trees and John can tell, just from the quality of the air, that he's on Earth.

Not home. Not really. Just…Earth.

He's alone.

_(exiled)_

More than that, he feels the ache, deep as muscle, deep as bone, that he's been alone for some incalculable amount of time as murky in his mind as the sky above. All that's left is that pain, not enough to kill but only maim in some horrible way for which there isn't any words.

John tucks his face in his collar, shoves his hands into the pockets of his ratty, frayed coat and scuffs through the snow without much care of how he goes. His thigh feels strange and light for the lack of holster; there's nothing in his pockets but lint and a faded ticket stub with no logo to tell him what it might be for.

He doesn't look where he's going. Doesn't care much either, fixed on the mechanical and regular motion of his feet, one in front of the other. He can't stop, like a shark that must swim forever just to be able to breathe. He doesn't remember the last time he saw a shark.

Suddenly there are hands on him, tugging and pulling. A voice in his ear, kind and elderly, wavering, "Poor thing! You look like you're frozen through!"

By the time he looks up, he is inside. A building. A church. Slanted eaves rise to a peak dazzling with faded gilt stars. It's not warm in the vestibule—he can still see the silver smoke of his breath, and that of the priest—but it _feels_ warm in comparison and in the back of his mind, John knows how dangerous that is.

He just…doesn't care a whole lot.

Alone.

"Here," the priest says in his high, quavering voice, "sit down a minute, warm yourself up. It's brutal cold out there." He ushers John towards the front, where the chancel burns gold and orange, soft and refulgent with flame. It's no warmer though, and John starts to shiver as the priest sort of manhandles him into the pew. John's butt hits the wood in a jarring collision of bone and he bites the tip of his tongue hard enough to taste blood.

He turns his head to say _something_ (it's been so long since he's spoken to anyone, since anyone's spoken to him) or maybe just _look_ and be seen, but when his head comes up, the priest is already gone. And he is alone.

Again.

John can't help it; he grips the edge of the pew in front in half-frozen fingers and rests his forehead on them, his eyes stinging and his chest so tight he thinks his heart might snap like an over-wound guitar string.

He can't even remember their names. Only little things; the glint of a bead in thick tangled hair, a pair of long ink stained hands wrapped around a tea cup, the smooth curve of brown flesh glimpsed in a strip between trousers and shirt, the excited flash of teeth, simultaneously shy, scared and proud. The sound of Rodney's voice nattering on over the white noise roar of….

The sound of Rodney's voice over the roar…

Rodney's voice…

John wakes.

He can hear the sound of the waves, dull and roaring, a slow stately swish to and fro, and over it, Rodney crabbing about the lack of proper sun screen and skin cancer statistics.

"The SGC has excellent medical benefits, Rodney," Elizabeth's voice answers, low and amused.

Elizabeth.

John opens his eyes and finds himself looking into an upside down version of Teyla's calm face; he becomes aware that the pressure on his shoulder is her hand, steady and firm.

"You were dreaming," she says.

"Yeah." John feels hollowed out and dull, still not quite in the here-and-now. Under him, sand grits cool and slithery. "I was cold."

Teyla gestures up and over her head he realizes someone—Rodney—rigged a sort of sun umbrella out of thermal blankets and pieces of tubing from the jumper. "Rodney was concerned that so much sunlight might be…unhealthy." Her mouth quirks slightly at the corner.

"Ah." John nods. If he listens, he can hear Ronon too, still whooping and shouting like a kid in the surf. He smiles.

He sits up a little, or tries; it takes Teyla putting her hand behind his shoulder and guiding him up to actually make it all the way up. The illusion of cold starts to dispel almost immediately and he can again feel the slow lazy heat that put him to sleep in the first place. John rubs his arms thoughtfully and feels the warmth start to soak into his skin again.


End file.
